Virtual Copy after Restore

I views photos in lightroom online and wanted to delete some of them via the All Photos library. I deleted a photo that was once synced with an album that is no longer synced. So it does only appear in All Photos. I deleted the photo and then viewed the Deleted photos.

At the same time I viewed the folder in the lightroom desktop application (in the folder, not in an album).

Then I restored the photo in the lightroom online from Deleted. So it appeared back in All Photos. It was where it was before. But after a few seconds, it seems when lightroom synced with the desktop, there appeared a virtual copy in the folder in the desktop application.

I repeated delete and restore and another copy appeared, but online still there was that one and only photo as it was ever before.

This makes absolutely no sense. Since lightroom is neither online nor on the iPad app able to create virtual copies on purpose (which is a pitty...) it is absolutely ridiculous that virtual copies are triggered from the cloud in that unintended way.

Are there any settings that can prevent this? Are there explanations that can justify this behaviour?

In my opinion this All Photos is a bug himself. If I synced a Photo via an Album I want the photos to be removed from the cloud when a photo is not synced by any album any more.

When you are talking about the 'Lightroom desktop application', are you talking about Lightroom or Lightroom Classic? I assume the latter, because that is the only version that supports virtual copies. What you describe here sounds as expected for Lightroom Classic. When you delete a photo online, that photo is removed from the synced albums in Lightroom Classic, but not deleted from the catalog. If you then restore it online, Lightroom Classic will initially download it as a brand new photo. But then it will notice that the photo actually already exisits in its catalog, so it will create a virtual copy instead of a real copy.

Conclusion: if your online photos are synced with Lightroom Classic, then Lightroom Classic should be used to manage the photos.

Virtual Copy after Restore

I views photos in lightroom online and wanted to delete some of them via the All Photos library. I deleted a photo that was once synced with an album that is no longer synced. So it does only appear in All Photos. I deleted the photo and then viewed the Deleted photos.

At the same time I viewed the folder in the lightroom desktop application (in the folder, not in an album).

Then I restored the photo in the lightroom online from Deleted. So it appeared back in All Photos. It was where it was before. But after a few seconds, it seems when lightroom synced with the desktop, there appeared a virtual copy in the folder in the desktop application.

I repeated delete and restore and another copy appeared, but online still there was that one and only photo as it was ever before.

This makes absolutely no sense. Since lightroom is neither online nor on the iPad app able to create virtual copies on purpose (which is a pitty...) it is absolutely ridiculous that virtual copies are triggered from the cloud in that unintended way.

Are there any settings that can prevent this? Are there explanations that can justify this behaviour?

In my opinion this All Photos is a bug himself. If I synced a Photo via an Album I want the photos to be removed from the cloud when a photo is not synced by any album any more.

When you are talking about the 'Lightroom desktop application', are you talking about Lightroom or Lightroom Classic? I assume the latter, because that is the only version that supports virtual copies. What you describe here sounds as expected for Lightroom Classic. When you delete a photo online, that photo is removed from the synced albums in Lightroom Classic, but not deleted from the catalog. If you then restore it online, Lightroom Classic will initially download it as a brand new photo. But then it will notice that the photo actually already exisits in its catalog, so it will create a virtual copy instead of a real copy.

Conclusion: if your online photos are synced with Lightroom Classic, then Lightroom Classic should be used to manage the photos.

When you are talking about the 'Lightroom desktop application', are you talking about Lightroom or Lightroom Classic? I assume the latter, because that is the only version that supports virtual copies. What you describe here sounds as expected for Lightroom Classic. When you delete a photo online, that photo is removed from the synced albums in Lightroom Classic, but not deleted from the catalog. If you then restore it online, Lightroom Classic will initially download it as a brand new photo. But then it will notice that the photo actually already exisits in its catalog, so it will create a virtual copy instead of a real copy.

Conclusion: if your online photos are synced with Lightroom Classic, then Lightroom Classic should be used to manage the photos.

Yes, I use the classic thing, it is actually the version with the richest feature set, isn't it?

It sounds like it is the way you describe it, still don't think this is a good behaviour.

I came to a similar conclusion. But exaclty this is the point where I see the flaw. If I add a photo to a synced album and remove it later, the photo still remains in the cloud. Then I can use "All synced photos" in the catalog in lightroom desktop to remove pictures from the cloud. But there is no control if I remove pictures that are contained in even more than one album. If I remove the photo there, it disappears from every album that is synced. There is no option to remove photos that are not in an album. Once in the cloud, in the cloud forever because the options for removing are too unexact.

The cloud features are a great benefit, but some of their behaviours are really frustrating. I don't see the need for that "All photos" thing as basic container (it could be a superior view for all content): Photo in synced album => Cloud, not in synced album => not in the cloud.

The only thing I can imagine to make that thing clean is to stop sync for every album, then remove everything from the cloud and then activate sync for albums again.

Like I said, if you sync a Lightroom Classic catalog to the cloud, then Lightroom Classic is king. Only use Lightroom Classic to manage your (online) photos and it will work fine. An image that is not in any online album, will still be in 'All Synced Photographs' in Lightroom Classic. If you remove it from there, it will be deleted from the cloud.

But the Adobes could do something and provide some more sync options. There was not much evolution in the last years. There is still no simple option for syncing Smart Albums. This is a point where I (as a software developer) do simply not unterstand where the problem is, and for me the use cases are very clear (e.g. album sync for all 5 star photos, keywords and so on..).

It seems to be a political choice rather than a technical one. Sure, there were severe technical problems to get the 10 year old code work with cloud syncing. That is why Adobe chose to develop a brand new Lightroom version. But the choice to not improve any sync features in Lightroom Classic after that new version was introduced was probably taken by marketing, not by the technical people.

Yeah, as in most cases. But to me, the Lightroom Classic is the most powerful version out there and the main reason for purchasing a subscription together with photoshop (which I use only occasionaly).